The author argues that the radical technological transformations contribute to the raise of new epistemological questions. The XXI century technologies could be described as a large-scale socio-technical system. The author claims that the engineering knowledge in the technogenic civilization combines science and technology, technology and industry, techno-science and art, economics, society and culture. At the same time engineers and technologists while doing their experimental research face with risks and uncertainty. The author argues that the rise of new global risks as well as the changes in the societal system make especially relevant the problems of resource saving, efficiency, ecological and technological safety. The author insists that the humanities could contribute to the settlement of these problems. She explains why the transdisciplinary approaches which aim at the cooperation of scientists and philosophers should be considered as the most prospective form of scientific research. This mode of research make it possible to combine fundamental issues with practical actions.

The authors identify several types of the new forms of protestmovement that are discusses within the problems of autonomy ofscientific system and the protection of the interests of scientists. They argue that the this type of communication shows how it is possible to combine both cognitive and normative attitude of science. The authors show the mechanisms of the reproduction of this communication and argue that it gradually turns into communicative macro system. The authors conclude that the protest movement in science could be considered as a practical resolution of the Merton – Popper paradox, which presumes the incompatibility of both cognitive attitude (impartial observation) and normative dimension (value production) of science.

R.K. Merton’s idea of scientific ethos describes the norms and values, which regulate the cognitive practices of scientists. According to it, science has the special status and plays the role of referee in society and culture. Nevertheless, such view of science provokes the paradoxes and contradictions, connected with the basic principles of the conception and the application of science to practice. In the article, this theme will be analyzed at some extent, and the possible decisions of paradoxes around the scientific ethos will be outlined briefly.

Civil activism in the field of science is one of the most crucial issues and the key factor of autonomy of science. Herewith, the position of universities and other scientific institutions is vulnerable and hinges upon state and private financing. Science finds itself between two unattractive and doubtful prospects of developing in either bureaucratic or corporate (in the business sense) way, which leads to the abridgement of basic academic freedoms. Setting the problem of professional expertise and mediation is highly important for the definition of borders and consolidation of the position of science.

The author analyzes the paradoxes of scientific activism from the standpoint of the concept of performativity. The author shows that the contradiction between the disinterested knowledge of the world and the interested action in society is generated by the traditional understanding of knowledge as a justified belief. The author discusses the so called performative conception of science, which gains many adherents in STS and replaces the standard concept of science. It is shown that when studying science as practice, the paradoxes of scientific activism are revised, because the rigid boundary between knowledge and action, science and values is removed.

The author discusses the meaning of the paradox, which rises as a result of the controversy between the principles of scientific ethos (R. Merton) and fallibilism (K. Popper). She argues that the justification of the moral authority of science should not depend on this paradox. The author uses Max Weber’s concept of substantive rationality to consider the idea of social legitimation of science. She argues for understanding expertise as a special mode of scientific knowledge which aims at justifying the authority of science in the society.

This chapter takes off from Max Weber’s famous lectures on poli­tics and science as ‘vocations’ to explore the concept of ‘modal power’, that is, the power to determine what is possible. Politics and science are complementarily concerned with modal power, in ways that go to the heart of Michael Dummett’s influential metaphysical characterisation of the antirealism/realism distinc­tion, which the chapter pursues across several philosophical fields, including logic, epistemology, jurisprudence and finally historiog­raphy. The chapter adopts a ‘post-truth’ perspective in the sense that modal power is treated from an ‘antirealist’ standpoint, in which ‘the name of the game’ is to expand one’s own sphere of possible action while constraining that of the opponent. That world of constrained possibilities is the ‘actual’ world, whose rela­tionship to other possible worlds fluctuates over time in ways that resemble quantum effects but are most clearly captured by ‘revi­sionist’ historiography. The chapter ends with a discussion of the contrasting attitudes to such historiography in politics and science.

The author discusses the possibility of spreading of the contextualism principles into the field of philosophy of science. He argues that, while discovering science in all of its aspects (viz. cultural, institutional, economic, communicative, etc.), philosophy of science identifies the relevant contexts for justifying the genesis, development, and reproduction of knowledge. Meanwhile, there is a complex interaction between philosophical and scientific analysis of these contexts. The author claims this process gives raise for a conflict which comes from the contextualization of science and the philosophical analysis of these contexts. The author shows that the resolution of these conflict could open new prospects for the modern philosophy of science.

This paper deals with the problem of continuity and discreteness of human consciousness. The author starts with the analysis of the “linguistic turn” in the philosophy of the 20th century when language was for the first time regarded as an autonomous essence. While stressing the illegitimacy of overestimating of linguistic discreteness, the author identifies three types of concepts, which help to understand differently the connection between continuum and discreteness. These are “the level concepts”, where the semantic and sensitive dimensions of the language are highlighted; “the concepts of complementarity”, which show that the discreteness is always accompanied by continuum (“non-verbal moments of communication”, etc.), and “the concepts of reference”, where the nonverbal and hidden cultural codes of language are explicated (viz. theories of symbols, linguo pragmatics, etc.).